Busy Philipps - This Will Only Hurt a Little

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This book is for my mother .

When theres nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

YOUR EX-LOVER IS DEAD (STARS)

Once, a (former) guy friend of mine, who happens to be gorgeous and famous and all of the things, said this to me: You know, I think people would consider you really beautiful, if only you didnt talk so much. Your personality is just a lot . Dont get me wrong, I love you, but I think people get distracted by that.

My clear reaction should have been, Ewww. Go fuck yourself.

But for so long, even with my strong personality , telling a man to fuck off wasnt easy for me to do. Instead, I would just nod and laugh and agree, Hahaha. Yeah , and then swallow whatever insult and seethe later.

During my twenty years working as an actress, there were times I even went along with being mildly bullied on set, not wanting to make a big deal out of something. I was a girl who could work within the incredibly sexist system that was set up, a girl who could take it. Men love a woman who laughs at the joke, especially if the joke is at her expense.

Shes so cool. She just gets it .

As outspoken and sure of myself as Ive always imagined myself to be, it was hard to find my voice in Hollywood. Or it seemed pointless. That no matter what, I was working in a boys club and thats just the way things were. Dont you want to work?

There was the on-set painter on a show who casually told me hed found sexy pictures of me online and that theyd really kept him company the night before.

Hahaha. Okay!

Im not gonna get that guy fired, right? Also, this seems insane (or maybe it doesnt), but there have been more than a few dudes on sets whove told me they jacked off to me. Thank you?

Or the actor who loudly proclaimed, Im gonna get them to write us a sex scene so I can really get in there and see what its like.

Hahahaha. Whatever.

Or the head of casting who told me the only way I was ever going to get movie roles was if I did a Maxim shoot.

So I did. It didnt help.

Or listening to Harvey Weinstein tell me what model he was currently having a relationship with, obviously not knowing the full extent of his depravity and horribleness. (I have the odd distinction of him not trying anything with me, I think weirdly because he met me and my husband, Marc, together and really liked Marc and thought we were friends or something?! Who fucking knows how a psychopaths brain works.) As he would casually objectify whatever woman it was, tell me that he fucked her, I would nod and mumble, Oh. Cool. Shes beautiful.

And then I would try to lose him as fast as I could.

Heres the thing: Its not easy to be a woman in this business. There will always be jokes about your body. There will always be guys who steal your best ideas and pass them off as their own. There will always be actors who push you to the ground. There will always be networks that ask you to lose weight. There will always be jobs you will not get based on your looks.

And the men will continue to support one another and show up for one another and hire one another, but if you want to stick around, girl, youd better be damn sure you smile when they ask and wear a low-cut top to your network test and lose the fucking weight and let them take credit for your words, because you are expendable.

At some point, I started not to care if I was expendable. It was beginning to wear on me, the things I watched some of my friends go through in order to get where they wanted to be in their careers, the things Id put up with and witnessed myself. But also life. Life is exhausting and it never gets easier. For anyone.

Two years ago, I was working on a web series for Jenny Mollen. Her friend Tom Lenk was showing me Instagram stories, which had just launched. I had done Snapchat a little, because my friend Kelly Oxford was into it and I liked the filters, but honestly, Instagram stories seemed kind of lame to me.

I dont get it. Why would they do this if Snapchat exists? Is anyone even gonna watch this shit?

I dont know, said Tom. But look, you have way more followers on Insta than on Snapchat, so probably more people will watch these. You can also just do both?

Tom. Who has the fucking time?

Turns out... me. I did. I had the fucking time. I wasnt really working as an actress. After Vice Principals , I sold a show to HBO with Danny McBrides Rough House Pictures producing. We were in the middle of developing that, so I was sort of holding off on other TV jobs until we could see where it was going.

Other than that, I was working with some friends, thinking maybe I would finally try to write another movie script. But mostly, I was just hanging out. I was meeting people for lunch. I started working out every day as a way to handle my anxiety. I was doing some surrogate stuff for Hillary Clinton, and also volunteering at one of my favorite charities, working with underserved kids who were struggling with mental illness. And then I was a mom. I am a mom.

At night, after the kids were asleep, I would go downstairs and turn on the TV and wait until Marc came down, so we could watch some show and go to bed. Routine marriage stuff. But then Tom introduced me to this thing. Instagram stories. And there was something appealing about it. I could talk about my day. Or what was going on in my house. Or the episode of Friends that was on. Or my life. Were people watching? I didnt really care. It was like a diary. Or a confessional on a reality show. Me, starring me.

But then people did start watching, in a way that was truly unexpected. And they were responding to my honesty and openness, which I completely hadnt anticipated. I just didnt know how to be any other way at this point in my life. I was done trying to put on a face, done trying to be something that I thought someone else wanted me to be. I was too tired.

Besides, Ive always liked telling stories, real or imaginary.

And there are things that happen to me that only happen to me. Like almost getting murdered in an Uber that may actually have not been an Uber. Or going to the Golden Globes as Michelle Williamss date and then getting locked out of my house in the rain at three in the morning, drunk and increasingly panicked. Or witnessing raccoons having insane, horrible-sounding raccoon sex on my balcony. Or having a front-row seat to the craziest Oscars mix-up in history. And thats only been in the last two years of Instagram stories!

And in between all that, I work out every morning, I make mac and cheese for my kids, I forget their favorite stuffed animals in Hawaii and start a transpacific search party, I cry when my TV pilot doesnt get picked up by NBC, I go see bands play, I hang out with my best friends, I have anxiety attacks and eat nachos and drink margaritas and go on vacation and live my life and live my life and live my life and live my life. For me. For you. To entertain you. To be seen. Its the only thing Ive ever wanted.